ALEXANDRIA, VA — A gun-wielding man showed up outside the home of a Virginia state legislator who proposed a ban on assault weapons.
VPM first reported the Saturday incident outside the Alexandria home of Del. Mark Levine, a Democrat representing the 45th Virginia House District. The protester was identified as Brandon Howard, chair of the Hopewell Republican Party and a candidate for the Hopewell, Virginia, City Council. He was also part of an armed demonstration at the Old Town Alexandria farmers market in September 2019, according to Fox5.
Levine told VPM that Howard walked the perimeter of his home with a “military-style semi-automatic shotgun and pistol.” In a later speech on the House of Delegates floor, Levine claimed he asked the protester through Alexandria police if he’d like to speak at or protest outside his Richmond office. An Alexandria police spokesperson told WTOP Howard did not trespass on the property.
Click Here: los jaguares argentina
Howard posted a video on the Right to Bear Arms Virginia Facebook page ahead of his stop outside Levine’s home. He called Levine a “tyrant” and said the protest was to call on Levine to withdraw HB 961, which would prohibit “any person from importing, selling, transferring, manufacturing, purchasing, or transporting an assault firearm.”
“You’re only getting my gun one way, and that’s with the business end,” Howard said in the video.
Levine said in the floor speech that it was “not appropriate” for Howard to show up at his home “with a loaded gun to coerce me to change my position on a bill.”
“That will not work. That will never work with me, and I suggest it never work with any member of this body,” Levine said. He told VPM the incident was reported to the Office of the Commonwealth Attorney for Alexandria.
The assault weapon ban bill passed in the House of Delegates but was tabled until 2021 in the Senate Judiciary Committee.